Tag: Pie

A common question that comes up in support for XL Cubed is how to add charts that look like a dial, or a gauge. Something like the below:

These are actually very easy to make and publish to the web, plus they have the further bonus of adding something different to make your reports look more professional.

Once you have your data ready, add a new doughnut chart and configure it to show the information you want it to.

This will give you a simple doughnut chart.

Next up, pick the cell that contains the information you want to show in the middle of the doughnut chart and reference it in another cell. For example, in the below example we have the two numbers that make up our doughnut chart in cells B3 and B4. Cell E3 contains the information we want to show in the middle of the doughnut chart.

As you can see, the formatting is different in E3 to the other cells. This is because we have formatted the cell to show the data how we want it to appear in the chart.

Once we are at this stage, it is just a case of transferring the number to the middle of the doughnut chart. You can do this by selecting the formatted cell, in our case E3, copying it and then paste special as a ‘Linked Picture’ anywhere in the worksheet (we will move it into the chart in the next step).

The ‘Linked Picture’ appears as a cell but it actually acts like a picture so, lastly, move the picture into the middle of the doughnut chart so it looks how you want it, then, right click on the new picture and select ‘Send to Back’

As the cell is a ‘Linked Picture’ Any changes you make to the cell you copied, formatting or data, will update the image.

Your Gauge Chart is complete! These charts also look good when published to the web.